Is Assad Losing the War in Syria?

Judging by a lot of the media coverage of the Syrian war, President Bashar al-Assad runs a curious sort of regime: it is always either crumbling or on the verge of victory.

The narrative shifts every now and then. Assad was losing from March 2011 until around October 2013, then he was winning for about a year and a half, and now he is back to losing again. The story is consistent only in that it remains reliably hung up on the extremes of victory or defeat.

Only rarely will the Assad regime be described as what it most probably is: a decomposing rump state plodding through a confused civil war toward an uncertain future, with no one quite sure anymore what victory would even look like. The Syrian government may lose more territory and break down structurally, perhaps even rapidly and catastrophically, but its constituent parts are not about to vanish from the face of the earth. In the hypothetical event of Assad’s death or withdrawal from Damascus, his armed forces would not cease to exist. Some would flee and some would die, but what remained would melt into a new ecology of militias and mayhem—and the war would go on.

However, let us not forget why Assad did not just lose the war in 2011: he has a significant base of support inside the territories still under his control, he is not being invaded by a stronger army, and his many opponents are too divided to function effectively. Even as the rebels grow stronger and he grows weaker, there are limits to how far they can chase Assad before they stumble over their own internal problems or run up against international objections.

In addition, the government has over the past year secured Homs and several key Damascus suburbs. These are areas of far greater strategic importance than Idlib or Jisr al-Shughour. No less important is the emerging albeit unspoken consensus in Western capitals since the summer of 2014 that Assad is a lesser evil than the Islamic State and that he should not, for the moment, be pushed past the breaking point.

As recently as February 26, 2015, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency declared that the war is “trending in the Assad regime’s favor.” In recent weeks, we have witnessed developments that have called this analysis into question—including the army’s territorial losses, reports of more assertive international backing for the rebels, and the Ghazaleh affair—but it was not unfounded. Assad remains the single strongest actor in the war, there are currently no signs that his allies are abandoning him, and the rebels remain too poorly organized to rule the country.

Too Many Uncertainties

Certainly, the economic and institutional gangrene in Syria could trigger a cascading split that effectively brings down the government, as the opposition has been hoping for four years. But that is not a predictable process. For all we know, the opposition or its international backing could implode first, changing the game again.

The Syrian Baathist elite is exceedingly secretive and difficult to understand, and the opposition groups and their allies are not much more transparent. In fact, even if all the information were available to us, this conflict might still contain too many moving parts to have an easily predictable outcome.

Four years after the uprising began, Syria has gained a reputation as the graveyard of political analysis, and it is well deserved. Many more confident statements, reports, and articles will undoubtedly be added to the pile before the war is over—and given the extraordinary complexity of this tragic and brutal conflict, some humility would be in order before pronouncing in favor of either side.

The stalemate could continue, till everyone has had enough and Syria is split along sectarian lines - turned into small, weak states ruled by the rebels, Assad and perhaps Kurds. Should that happen, Israel would have emerged the biggest winner in the war.

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Mubasher Hassan

May 18, 20158:58 am

Aron Lund could have done better. playing safe! OR lets admit...Insurrections devoid of a promise of peace and prosperity for ppl directly involved eventually die giving rise to even more authoritarian rule by the surviving regime. IS holds no promise.

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Yahoo

May 19, 20153:24 pm

Then three possibilities as follows 1)Your. Basically saying : no need for anaylsis 2) You donot enough 3) You know Assad regime is melting but you want to support him or refuse the unfolding demise of the regime .I think Ford has a more realistic grasb of the events . You are right Assad is still the single strongest force , but this is new low for him at the military , economic , and domestic trust level .

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Bob Bowker

May 19, 20157:18 pm

Aron, you are correct to argue that it is too soon to know whether the regime will fall, and whether it may do so over an extended period or quite suddenly. But its inflexibility and the increasingly likely possibility that it might collapse, and the fear of atrocities against the Alawites and other minorities arising from such a situation warrant a serious effort now at contingency planning by the UN and others. The aim should be to work with regional countries to shape jihadist behaviour and rhetoric to reduce the possibility of an Alawite refugee outflow that would overwhelm Lebanon; and to try to protect those who remain or flee. Hopefully no mass population movement will take place, but if it does, quiet diplomacy and preparatory work at this juncture could help to save lives later.

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Aron Lund

May 24, 20153:33 am

Bob, I completely agree with you that a regime breakdown should be part of contingency planning. You made that point very well in your National Interest article, which I just read. My point is merely that the scenario that most often seems to be forgotten when the international community plans ahead for Syria is also the most likely one: more conflict, rather than any sort post-conflict situation, with or without Asssad. There seems to be more effort put into imagining a new constitution for Syria than imagining what the country and its neighbors will be like after five years more of this. Or ten or fifteen, for that matter.

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